Arrogance is our downfall

[Daft Kerplunk]

The board’s arrogance is a major reason we are headed down. They’re convinced they’re brilliant, they treat fans like customers that are just there to extract money from, the hubris about our academy and ability to sign players is unbelievable. They continue to fail. The board deserve relegation. Maybe relegation would get rid of them.

[AlexLaw76]

Signing the likes of Bazunu and trying to be 'different'.... Semmens and co need to leave the club at the end of the season (everyone else is)

Sports Republic seem to be atrocious owners....again, thanks to Semmens and co.

Everything about Saints deverse's relegation

[Lighthouse]

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

[AlexLaw76]

Just now, Lighthouse said:

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

I wonder the cost of the Brighton team............ the ones looking like Barcelona on acid at the moment.

[Archers Road Stand]

2 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

Or a few Leandro Trossards...

[Crab Lungs]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

I wonder the cost of the Brighton team............ the ones looking like Barcelona on acid at the moment.

Yep. It’s all about good recruitment. Don’t need to spend 30m on a player at all. Plenty of great footballers in the Dutch, Belgian, Austrian, Swiss, Czech etc etc leagues that could play comfortably in the PL at a fraction of the cost.

[AlexLaw76]

42 minutes ago, Crab Lungs said:

Yep. It’s all about good recruitment. Don’t need to spend 30m on a player at all. Plenty of great footballers in the Dutch, Belgian, Austrian, Swiss, Czech etc etc leagues that could play comfortably in the PL at a fraction of the cost.

Why we signed Bazunu, Larios, Mara and Lis is beyond me

[Lallana's Left Peg]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

Exactly this.  The decaying of the quality in our team started a long time ago, and one transfer window was never going to fix that.  We're now in a position where the potential we have purchased isn't mature enough to steer us out of a relegation scrap and the experienced players don't have enough quality to make moments count.  It was the worst case scenario for the club which had to stay clear of trouble this season for the transfer strategy to have any credibility.

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

We can only dream of playing of with the financial big boys like Brentford and Brighton.

Oh how I long for the days where we outspent such titans.

Oh the poverty the poverty the poverty.

Edited 26 December, 2022 by CB Fry

[S-Clarke]

1 hour ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Why we signed Bazunu, Larios, Mara and Lis is beyond me

You sign those players when you already have decent experience in the building, but we did exactly what I feared - thought we'd struck a winning formula with Tino and decided to fill the team with that approach. It's working out exactly how it was always going to work out.

[Pamplemousse]

A season in the Championship with some of these young players would be quite fun followed by promotion but it was never going to work in the Premier League immediately.

[Lighthouse]

35 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

We can only dream of playing of with the financial big boys like Brentford and Brighton.

Oh how I long for the days where we outspent such titans.

Oh the poverty the poverty the poverty.

So we should always be like the two clubs who happen to be doing well right now on a relatively low budget, just because? That’s very much the anomaly, rather than the norm. We had our turn doing that between 2012 and 2016, it’s never sustainable long term.

If I was a betting man I’d say both of those clubs will be fighting relegation in the next couple of seasons.

[SotonianWill]

I think our downfall was SR saying f*ck signing premier league quality players let’s make our first team a youth team. 

[Bad Wolf]

2 hours ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

The board’s arrogance is a major reason we are headed down. They’re convinced they’re brilliant, they treat fans like customers that are just there to extract money from, the hubris about our academy and ability to sign players is unbelievable. They continue to fail. The board deserve relegation. Maybe relegation would get rid of them.

Well...They're a business?

[Bad Wolf]

Everyone has played a part in this. Players, management, board, recruitment and yes fans.

[Daft Kerplunk]

1 minute ago, SotonianWill said:

I think our downfall was SR saying f*ck signing premier league quality players let’s make our first team a youth team. 

This seems to be true but this was the approach of Semmens and co too. That’s what SR thought they were getting when they were sold Saints, and Semmens and co sold them the the thought that were the ones to continue doing the ‘amazing’ work they’d been doing. And that’s the arrogance. Sign Tino, think that’s all we need to do as it’ll just keep happening. Today’s performance was another in a long line of ‘that’s been coming’ shit performances. At some point the penny will drop. 

[Badger]

2 hours ago, Crab Lungs said:

Yep. It’s all about good recruitment. Don’t need to spend 30m on a player at all. Plenty of great footballers in the Dutch, Belgian, Austrian, Swiss, Czech etc etc leagues that could play comfortably in the PL at a fraction of the cost.

Exactly. Recruitment is key. That for me is improving the team for the here and now, not just assembling talented individuals to sell on in a season or two.

No objection to the ‘sell on’ approach, but the young players need a guiding head on the pitch. Bring in experience and leadership in a couple of positions to nurture that talent. But we don’t.

Meanwhile, Les was relaxed about it, and Semmens comes out with the same guff at Forums about investing in young players, and our usp , blah, blah. League position isn’t important though ..  
 

Ankersen is an interesting one. Gives all the talks about fine margins, and data bollocks. His credibility remains with the success at Brentford but we don’t know his contribution here as opposed to the DOF, and recruitment team, who have got it right more often than not it seems. 
 

Sports Republic made money available, but not spent wisely. 

[harvey]

2 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

You are seriously deluded.

[cloggy saint]

Arrogance?? Absolute bollocks, it's ineptitude, from the owners down to the players.

[Lighthouse]

2 minutes ago, harvey said:

You are seriously deluded.

Oh right, my apologies. How much did we spend?

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

2 minutes ago, cloggy saint said:

Arrogance?? Absolute bollocks, it's ineptitude, from the owners down to the players.

Sadly, I think it's both. An arrogant attitude in the belief they're doing brilliantly when in fact it's ineptitude on a grand scale throughout the club. And a social media effort designed to sucker the fanbase into thinking everything is A-OK. Sickening.

[Wiggles31]

Don’t agree with OP but surely the plan should have been stability. Not sacking RH in the summer and not signing a striker, replacing Romeu, and signing and inexperienced GK has been by far the glaring mistakes. 

[FarehamSaintJames]

I was a season ticket holder from 02-10, and then went to 80% of matches 10-13. 

In the last five seasons, I’ve been four times.

I have no interest in the club getting my money for what has largely been failing performances for years. Those that still fork out on season tickets year after year, quite frankly are mugs.

[LGTL]

22 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Oh right, my apologies. How much did we spend?

Interesting. Brighton spent just over £40m, Leicester £15m, Villa £62m, Fulham £55m and Brentford £45m. 

We aren’t asking to compete with Arsenal or City or Liverpool FFS. We spaffed a decent chunk of money on young kids and gambles. Poverty indeed. 

Edited 26 December, 2022 by LGTL

[Crab Lungs]

Oooops was meant to post this here;

As a club, we’ve been far busy virtue signalling, backslapping and congratulating ourselves as we degraded in every aspect as a football club.

We’ve somehow created an echo chamber full of mediocre, arrogant and inept staff and players all laced with a staggering amount of delusion as to how good, how important and in control they are of the situation.

the truth is we’ve been sliding off this cliff for a while now and with every good player we sell and every capable staff member we lose, another finger loses grip. I’d say we’re pretty much clinging on with a single hand now.

I’ve said it for years now… our recruitment is a joke. Bunch of nerds sat around counting KMs and completed passes and somehow, season upon season, managing to make us even worse than the last. Yet… no accountability? I could 100% do a better job. Give me 50k and I’ll give you 5-10 player suggestions per position around the world who could all improve the squad that would fit within our budget and requirements.

in fact, there’s plenty of people on here who could outperform these jokers

[Turkish]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

Brighton signed a World Cup winner for £8m. We spent almost double that to somehow make already the worst goalkeeping department in the division even worse

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, Crab Lungs said:

Oooops was meant to post this here;

 

As a club, we’ve been far busy virtue signalling, backslapping and congratulating ourselves as we degraded in every aspect as a football club.

We’ve somehow created an echo chamber full of mediocre, arrogant and inept staff and players all laced with a staggering amount of delusion as to how good, how important and in control they are of the situation.

the truth is we’ve been sliding off this cliff for a while now and with every good player we sell and every capable staff member we lose, another finger loses grip. I’d say we’re pretty much clinging on with a single hand now.

I’ve said it for years now… our recruitment is a joke. Bunch of nerds sat around counting KMs and completed passes and somehow, season upon season, managing to make us even worse than the last. Yet… no accountability? I could 100% do a better job. Give me 50k and I’ll give you 5-10 player suggestions per position around the world who could all improve the squad that would fit within our budget and requirements.

in fact, there’s plenty of people on here who could outperform these jokers

Spot on Rylan

[Badger]

14 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Brighton signed a World Cup winner for £8m. We spent almost double that to somehow make already the worst goalkeeping department in the division even worse

I’ve said on a previous thread, that Brighton seem to have quietly gone about their recruitment and have done well. Whereas our board just talk about it and pat themselves on the back in how clever they are in unearthing gems. 

[Miltonaggro]

The pedigree of Sports Republic is based on the stellar ascendency of Brentford. It may have been a smart move for Rasmus & Co. to look for stability before putting their naive faith, and a slice of Dragan’s dough, in the Tweenies.  If you think about the hard times supporting saints in the top flight, fighting relegation in a 15k ground under Branfoot, Merrington and Jones there were still high points, committed players with character who could raise the spirits, have a right fucking go. Fans critical but relatively united in backing the side in 90 mins. As others have said the current dirge seems to have set in post Poch, and feels relentless by comparison. If we go down it’s going to be very hard to regroup and rebuild our club. What an abject fucking mess! 

[Lighthouse]

48 minutes ago, LGTL said:

Interesting. Brighton spent just over £40m, Leicester £15m, Villa £62m, Fulham £55m and Brentford £45m. 

We aren’t asking to compete with Arsenal or City or Liverpool FFS. We spaffed a decent chunk of money on young kids and gambles. Poverty indeed. 

Leicester, Villa and Fulham have all massively outspent us over the last few seasons. Brentford and Brighton are just the, “why can’t we be like them,” flavour of the month. Their best players will be poached and they will sink down again, same as everyone else.

We had our four seasons in the sun, the only way to stay there consistently is to consistently spend big and we haven’t. Leicester did it for a while off the back of their league win, as soon as they stopped spending they dropped down.

[Turkish]

4 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Not arrogance but poverty. It’s almost amusing hearing people talk about the £70m we spent in summer as a huge investment. Our supposed big spending bonanza was basically 0.95 Nicolas Pepes.

10 years of premier league money and we’re still on our arse. How can we complete with Brentford, Leeds, Brighton, Palace and so on.  Who was the last player we signed who improved our first team?

Edited 26 December, 2022 by Turkish

[Lighthouse]

9 minutes ago, Turkish said:

10 years of premier league money and we’re still on our arse. How can we complete with Brentford, Leeds, Brighton, Palace and so on.  Who was the last player we signed who improved our first team?

Most of it has been spent staying in the Premier League. We do compete with those teams, we’ve been in around them for six years now. I don’t get your last question; literally ABK and Lavia six months ago.

I don’t get all these, “what about Trossard/Brighton?” Posts. We’ve signed some perfectly decent players for the same price. What we can’t do is try and build a whole squad, cheaper than anyone else, year after year, and stay up.

[Convict Colony]

We lost our momentum the moment Gao became our owner, those years coat us alot and will take us years to catch back up.

[OttawaSaint]

Watched all the other games highlights. What stood out was just now much better all the other teams are with loads players with a bit of guile and composure. We have none.

We are in massive doodoo. The team is weak enough but to bring in a no hoper like Jones we are waving the white flag.

He won't turn this around. We're done!

[harvey]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Most of it has been spent staying in the Premier League. We do compete with those teams, we’ve been in around them for six years now. I don’t get your last question; literally ABK and Lavia six months ago.

I don’t get all these, “what about Trossard/Brighton?” Posts. We’ve signed some perfectly decent players for the same price. What we can’t do is try and build a whole squad, cheaper than anyone else, year after year, and stay up.

Thanks for the input Martin.

[Toussaint]

Do SR actually care if we go down? Maybe the lure of the parachute payment is more attractive than the risk of attempting to spend  our way out of trouble?

[whiteleySaint30]

4 hours ago, Pamplemousse said:

A season in the Championship with some of these young players would be quite fun followed by promotion but it was never going to work in the Premier League immediately.

2 issues with this:   

  The better ones won't stick around.

 

The others aren't good enought get us promoted out of the championship.........

 

4 hours ago, Pamplemousse said:

 

 

4 hours ago, Pamplemousse said:

 

 

Edited 26 December, 2022 by whiteleySaint30
Mistake

[HarvSFC]

Frankly, for all the talk about having very little money, we've made too many mistakes with the money that we have/had. New contracts and wages going on underperforming players like McCarthy, Stephens, Walcott and Djenepo were needless and disastrous to have them eating up a large portion of wages at the club. I don't think many other, if any Premier League clubs would have offered these players a deal, let alone have them on the rumoured £70k that Walcott is on.

Then, you go into the summer, address there are problems in the first team setup, so we get rid of the old coaches, but keep the underperforming manager, which proved to be a delaying of the inevitable, which many fans predicted.

The summer window, we had this great idea of signing young, potential superstars. But, every player we signed was a punt and now they're proving not to be good enough. Once again, recruitment hasn't been good enough. Did we need Larios and Mara? Probably not, their fees could have gone elsewhere. Did we need to spend so much on Bazunu when a decent scout could have identified a currently better goalkeeper from Europe for the same price. Aribo for a pressing team? The last player that would suit a pressing system. Maitland-Niles, average Championship central midfielder, was once a very good right-back, but doesn't want to play there. Selling Romeu was also a mistake. We did make two good signings in Lavia and Bella-Kotchap. But, a good striker/attacker for the immediate was a necessity after losing Ings and Broja over the last two seasons. If we didn't sign some of the aforementioned names, we could have made a £20m-£30m attacking signing and been in a better position today, rather than bottom of the league on Boxing Day. Again, all the talk of having little budget, but we put it in the wrong areas in the summer and not the priority.

Then we've taken another punt on the manager position. The most important part of a team, as a good manager and a bad manager are the difference between safety and relegation. We were in a precarious position when we appointed Jones, but it wasn't fatal. We were/are still close to safety and a good manager could have instilled some confidence and a game plan into the team. Any new manager we appointed was even given the luxury of having a break from first team fixtures and given time to work their ideas with the squad. However, we've returned with nothing. No new manager bounce at all. Jones said his mistake at Stoke was that he went in and tried to change too much, well it seems like his mistake here is that he's came in and changed nothing. We bought him out of his contract at Luton, so again a fee has exchanged hands, but was it to the right hand?

Essentially, at the moment, as we sit 20th in the league it seems as though we can plead poverty all the time, but we're not making use of that small budget well at all.

 

 

[Lighthouse]

37 minutes ago, harvey said:

Thanks for the input Martin.

Thanks for another wonderfully constructed argument.

31 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

Do SR actually care if we go down? Maybe the lure of the parachute payment is more attractive than the risk of attempting to spend  our way out of trouble?

The lure of parachute payments? They’re a safety net designed to stop clubs going out of business, after losing their share of $5.5bn, or whatever that TV deal was for international broadcasting rights. 

[cloggy saint]

Even though, as a few others have said, this is easily the worst squad we've had since returning to the PL, it's not as if we're cut adrift. Tomorrow's games are unlikely to throw up any surprises, if things go well in the next round of fixtures we could climb to 16th and be 3 points off mid-table. It seems unlikely now but stranger things have happened.

[FarehamSaintJames]

Arrogance is our biggest downfall as the title suggests.

We've done extremely well to stay up after all this time but we have now out-done ourselves.

The club for years has used these pathetic slogans “be brave”, “be bold”, “we dare” and all that bollocks.

We brought out a shambles of a kit this season. 
We’ve bought a load of kids who quite clearly are not ready for this division.
We let all of our experience go because they don’t fit SR’s model of being a kindergarten club.

We deserve to go down. The players are better than they’re currently playing. But the shambles of management and that lack of leaders has absolutely murdered this season.

For that we will be in the Football League again for years. Cheaper for SR to run a business in that regard.

[Miltonaggro]

 

[S-Clarke]

12 hours ago, HarvSFC said:

Frankly, for all the talk about having very little money, we've made too many mistakes with the money that we have/had. New contracts and wages going on underperforming players like McCarthy, Stephens, Walcott and Djenepo were needless and disastrous to have them eating up a large portion of wages at the club. I don't think many other, if any Premier League clubs would have offered these players a deal, let alone have them on the rumoured £70k that Walcott is on.

Then, you go into the summer, address there are problems in the first team setup, so we get rid of the old coaches, but keep the underperforming manager, which proved to be a delaying of the inevitable, which many fans predicted.

The summer window, we had this great idea of signing young, potential superstars. But, every player we signed was a punt and now they're proving not to be good enough. Once again, recruitment hasn't been good enough. Did we need Larios and Mara? Probably not, their fees could have gone elsewhere. Did we need to spend so much on Bazunu when a decent scout could have identified a currently better goalkeeper from Europe for the same price. Aribo for a pressing team? The last player that would suit a pressing system. Maitland-Niles, average Championship central midfielder, was once a very good right-back, but doesn't want to play there. Selling Romeu was also a mistake. We did make two good signings in Lavia and Bella-Kotchap. But, a good striker/attacker for the immediate was a necessity after losing Ings and Broja over the last two seasons. If we didn't sign some of the aforementioned names, we could have made a £20m-£30m attacking signing and been in a better position today, rather than bottom of the league on Boxing Day. Again, all the talk of having little budget, but we put it in the wrong areas in the summer and not the priority.

Then we've taken another punt on the manager position. The most important part of a team, as a good manager and a bad manager are the difference between safety and relegation. We were in a precarious position when we appointed Jones, but it wasn't fatal. We were/are still close to safety and a good manager could have instilled some confidence and a game plan into the team. Any new manager we appointed was even given the luxury of having a break from first team fixtures and given time to work their ideas with the squad. However, we've returned with nothing. No new manager bounce at all. Jones said his mistake at Stoke was that he went in and tried to change too much, well it seems like his mistake here is that he's came in and changed nothing. We bought him out of his contract at Luton, so again a fee has exchanged hands, but was it to the right hand?

Essentially, at the moment, as we sit 20th in the league it seems as though we can plead poverty all the time, but we're not making use of that small budget well at all.

 

 

I agree, we have spent money previously - we had a period of 3-4 windows where we had no pot to piss in, but prior to that Boufal,. Hoedt, Lemina, Carillo etc - big investments, and every single one failed and was given away for free at the end of their contract. That's where the problems started for me.

I don't want to hang out the signings we made this summer, as they're punts and kids in the main - ABK and Lavia prove that there are some gems in there, and with game time maybe Edozie, Larios and Mara can produce similar. The problem we have this year is that our core experience was always absolutely horrendous, and we eroded that even more in the summer. (Losing Romeu for starters)

We're trying to blood talented young players alongside the likes of Moussa, Diallo, Perraud, Adam Armstrong, Ely etc - it's just a recipe for disaster. The recruitment from the previous years has now caught up with us.

Edited 27 December, 2022 by S-Clarke

[RedArmy]

17 hours ago, Pamplemousse said:

A season in the Championship with some of these young players would be quite fun followed by promotion but it was never going to work in the Premier League immediately.

Promotion 😂 

When we go down we’ll be there for a while again. 

[FarehamSaintJames]

12 hours ago, HarvSFC said:

Frankly, for all the talk about having very little money, we've made too many mistakes with the money that we have/had. New contracts and wages going on underperforming players like McCarthy, Stephens, Walcott and Djenepo were needless and disastrous to have them eating up a large portion of wages at the club. I don't think many other, if any Premier League clubs would have offered these players a deal, let alone have them on the rumoured £70k that Walcott is on.

Then, you go into the summer, address there are problems in the first team setup, so we get rid of the old coaches, but keep the underperforming manager, which proved to be a delaying of the inevitable, which many fans predicted.

The summer window, we had this great idea of signing young, potential superstars. But, every player we signed was a punt and now they're proving not to be good enough. Once again, recruitment hasn't been good enough. Did we need Larios and Mara? Probably not, their fees could have gone elsewhere. Did we need to spend so much on Bazunu when a decent scout could have identified a currently better goalkeeper from Europe for the same price. Aribo for a pressing team? The last player that would suit a pressing system. Maitland-Niles, average Championship central midfielder, was once a very good right-back, but doesn't want to play there. Selling Romeu was also a mistake. We did make two good signings in Lavia and Bella-Kotchap. But, a good striker/attacker for the immediate was a necessity after losing Ings and Broja over the last two seasons. If we didn't sign some of the aforementioned names, we could have made a £20m-£30m attacking signing and been in a better position today, rather than bottom of the league on Boxing Day. Again, all the talk of having little budget, but we put it in the wrong areas in the summer and not the priority.

Then we've taken another punt on the manager position. The most important part of a team, as a good manager and a bad manager are the difference between safety and relegation. We were in a precarious position when we appointed Jones, but it wasn't fatal. We were/are still close to safety and a good manager could have instilled some confidence and a game plan into the team. Any new manager we appointed was even given the luxury of having a break from first team fixtures and given time to work their ideas with the squad. However, we've returned with nothing. No new manager bounce at all. Jones said his mistake at Stoke was that he went in and tried to change too much, well it seems like his mistake here is that he's came in and changed nothing. We bought him out of his contract at Luton, so again a fee has exchanged hands, but was it to the right hand?

Essentially, at the moment, as we sit 20th in the league it seems as though we can plead poverty all the time, but we're not making use of that small budget well at all.

 

 

Everything written above is spot on 👍🏻

[Ex Lion Tamer]

I will be accused of being a Manji alias again but I do buy into the argument that it was Semmens who cocked up the striker signing, not SR. Of course there have been other mistakes but that specific one has cost us big time.

This season was always going to be a struggle with so many young players but if we could stay up then we would have something to build on. Not getting in a striker, which SR had big funds set aside for, has killed the plan at the first hurdle

[S-Clarke]

6 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

I will be accused of being a Manji alias again but I do buy into the argument that it was Semmens who cocked up the striker signing, not SR. Of course there have been other mistakes but that specific one has cost us big time.

This season was always going to be a struggle with so many young players but if we could stay up then we would have something to build on. Not getting in a striker, which SR had big funds set aside for, has killed the plan at the first hurdle

I guess we'll see in January. If SR wanted a striker, then I imagine they will personally spend that £30m in the first few days of January on someone they've hade lined up for months.

But to me it feels like the usual club propaganda -  ''we tried so hard, but just couldn't in the end''. Makes it look like there was money there etc, but actually the chance of us signing Gakpo was always pretty minimal to say the least.

Look at Promes in that January window,  ''we came so close, we tried so hard, ran out of time. We'll be back in during the summer'' etc etc. That obviously happened..!

Edited 27 December, 2022 by S-Clarke

[FarehamSaintJames]

Still waiting on @manji ‘s inside info?

Imminent signings at the start of January lined up supposedly. 👀

[Lee On Solent Saint]

2 hours ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

I will be accused of being a Manji alias again but I do buy into the argument that it was Semmens who cocked up the striker signing, not SR. Of course there have been other mistakes but that specific one has cost us big time.

This season was always going to be a struggle with so many young players but if we could stay up then we would have something to build on. Not getting in a striker, which SR had big funds set aside for, has killed the plan at the first hurdle

If that was the case, then surely Semmens should have been sacked? For me, he just epitomises what is wrong with the club at the moment. 

[manji]

2 hours ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Still waiting on @manji ‘s inside info?

Imminent signings at the start of January lined up supposedly. 👀

We support the same team. The info I was given was genuine I was told about Gapko a while ago. I’m just guessing here but it suggests to me that the current organisation of the club is fucked already.